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March 2019
Every winter we consider how we’re carrying out our mission of living an alternative to the consumer culture. We’re still committed to that mission, and also to keeping up constructive connections with neighbors to whom our way of life may seem foreign. We try different ways to reach out. Some fail. Others grow.
This will be our twelfth year of inviting families to unplug from their electronic devices during the school’s spring break week and take part in free community activities. Local libraries, historical societies, state parks and other groups will host events. I remember how hard it felt to explain the concept of Screen-Free Week for the first couple of years. Now it’s becoming a local tradition, and we’re learning to coordinate farm activities with other groups’ offerings. This year area libraries are partnering with the Tug Hill Tomorrow land trust to offer nature-themed programs. During Screen-Free Week people can go to the Sandy Creek and Orwell libraries for salamander-related readings and crafts, and then come here to look for salamanders under rocks and in pond edges. Wildlife here is smaller and less dramatic than what kids see on nature programs, but I remember one fascinated kid walking with us, spotting wildflowers, guessing who had left animal tracks, finding salamanders, and saying, “Well, who wouldn’t like nature if they knew there was all this going on in it?”
This is our third year of collecting general pricelists from all the funeral homes in Oswego County (plus one in Onondaga County which offers lower-cost direct cremations.) The first time I mentioned this at a Pulaski Community Services Task Force meeting, many people looked uncomfortable, and some murmured that surely funeral directors did all they could to help people. I said I believed there were directors who meant very well, but I also believed grieving people could be vulnerable to sales pitches and misleading information. I also said that, while this is the poorest county in the state, it costs more to be buried or cremated here than in better-off counties nearby. Some parts of NY have local chapters of the Funeral Consumers Association, but Oswego County does not. Someone from the Rochester FCA chapter has helped us gather information to share.
The response from funeral directors has varied. During the first year’s survey when I pointed out to one funeral director (after a polite request had failed) that they were legally required to make their general price list available, she expressed the hope that that law would soon be changed and that she would be able to sue people like me; this year she just gave me the information I requested. This year another funeral director pointed out that he donated to an agency we’ve worked with. He asked if we recommended generous funeral directors like him; when I said that we just offered basic pricing information, he said he might have to stop donating if his generosity was going to be repaid by ingratitude and interference. But another funeral home sent us their new pricelist along with a handwritten note saying “Thank you”—and they had cut their prices by almost one-third. And this year, when I mentioned the new price survey at a Task Force meeting, another member said she’d been passing that information on to rehab centers.
This February I was invited to join a larger group working on poverty-related issues. The group discussed vision statements, procedural rules, and metrics for evaluating success. I struggled to understand how parts of our discussions related to the needs around us. Perhaps this was answered by remarks about how grant-giving organizations preferred requests that came out of Collective Impact initiatives. I was troubled when the meeting ended with the agreement to hire a pricey inspirational speaker and nonprofit advisor to address the group and help us develop a vision, but to the others at the table this made sense.
No wonder, given the different worlds we come from. Many other agencies shape their work around grant funding as they strive to address large-scale issues like the county’s lack of decent affordable housing, mental health care, and transportation access. Here at the farm our work is determined by the needs we see around us, by our skills and limitations, and by the amount of time and energy we have to give. We don’t have programs; we do subsistence work so we have what we need to sustain ourselves and to share, and we respond personally to the people who come to us. People give us money without strings attached so we can do this; I continue to be surprised by and grateful for this generosity. I’m also grateful for the Catholic Worker’s emphasis on personalism.
At the same time, I am aware of all the needs that we don’t know how to meet, and of the times when I and my neighbors have been helped by what the CW Aims and Means describe unflatteringly as “impersonal ‘charity.’” I’m grateful for my Medicaid coverage. I’m grateful for the kindness and expertise of agency workers met through the Pulaski task force who have helped some of our neighbors get needed medical care or food assistance I am still trying to learn how we can best help each other as we work in our different ways. –by Joanna
Reflections On My Reading by Lorraine
The winter slow time has been a blessing for me, more time for reading and less guilt over limitations imposed by back pain. I fell twice on snow and ice around the turn of the year and ended up getting physical therapy which should help increase my core strength as well as dealing with the immediate problem. Doing exercises multiple times each day reminds me to pray for those in pain, and recovery makes me newly grateful for the everyday wonder of normal pain-free movement. I’ve also been grateful for books that help me to make sense of the daily news by fitting it into some broader context.
Joanna introduced me to the writings of Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who was given the Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental and justice work. The following are quotes from her memoir Unbowed that connected for me with my life at the farm or with current events:
“Politicians stir people up and give them reasons to blame their own predicaments on people from other ethnic groups.
Professionals can make simple things complicated. I don’t think you need a diploma to plant a tree.
Trees are living symbols of peace and hope. A tree has roots in the soil yet reaches to the sky. It tells us that to aspire we need to be grounded, and that no matter how high we go it is from our roots that we draw sustenance.
Everything was now perceived as having a monetary value . . . if you can sell it, you forget about protecting it.
No matter how much you try to destroy it, you can’t stop truth and justice from sprouting.”
In Replenishing the Earth, Maathai lays out the connections between spiritual traditions and care for the earth. “Our needs and wants are outstripping the ability of the earth to provide, and some of us will have to do with less if those who have very little are going to have enough to survive” reminds me of the ‘live simply’ motto painted on a beam in our barn. “Gratitude is the simple acknowledgment of the bounty with which you have been blessed and a sense of responsibility for using it wisely” and “I have come to accept that you cannot do everything, and no one should expect you to—including yourself” helped when my attitude needed adjusting. “No society has ever declared that it has enough” and “It is unlikely that, given the effects of climate change, any wall will be high enough, any region remote enough, or any enclave rich enough to withstand every hurricane, flood, drought, earthquake, or spreading desert” expose the flaws in accepted popular opinion. And finally two quotes that are like Quaker queries, something to ponder without one ‘right’ answer: “Can we really put a price tag on the carbon dioxide trees capture? What about values such as compassion or empathy? What about justice or equity?” and “[With all our possessions] are we happier, more fulfilled? Are we living a life that is all we had hoped it would be? Or are we simply feeding our craving—and in the process destroying the very life systems that sustain all?”
From Francisco Cantu’s The Line Becomes a River and Alfredo Corchado’s Homelands I learned some history and was able to see from new perspectives the immigration issues that dominate headlines and divide the country. The life portrayed inHeartland, Sarah Smarsh’s memoir, speaks of poverty in ways that speak to me. “the sort of poor who, whether by spirit or circumstances, found a way to feed themselves and whoever else needed a meal” sounds like farms I’ve known. “The shaming of the poor is a unique form of bigotry . . . it’s about what your actions have failed to accomplish—financial success . . . about your worth in a supposed meritocracy” and “the distance between how poverty is handled in public policy and what it looks like in human lives” apply here as well as in Kansas.
Zach’s Work
This winter has not been as snowy as many that we’ve experienced here. This meant that I was able to keep bringing out logs from the woods right into mid-January. I have made a few alterations to the log skidding arch which have made it a little handier, and I welded together a new hitch assembly for one of the tractors to use with the arch. We had a lot of people coming to buy lumber at the sawmill in December and it was nice that the increased demand and the good weather coincided. We’ve burned most of the wood in the main woodshed as I write this in mid- February but there is enough there for the rest of the month, and then we have what I call the emergency wood pile in the new barn, which isn’t needed in some years but will be very handy this time. I brought out a couple of loads of firewood from the woods when the snow was low and dumped them outside the woodshed, and there is more already cut in the woods and waiting to be fetched in the spring.
We decided in January that the restaurant-type dishwasher in the kitchen was really not of much use to us now since we don’t have large groups of people staying anymore. Another problem was that the store where we used to get the chemicals for it closed about a year ago. In February we decided to put it up for sale on Craigslist and a brewery starting business on Seneca Lake bought it and took it away. The countertops and cabinets on either side of the dishwasher are not in the best shape, so we found an inexpensive longer piece of preformed countertop to fill the space along that whole wall,and I am building new cabinets to go under it. The old sink at that end of the kitchen also needs to be replaced, as the mounting bars have rusted away, so I will do that at the same time and reconfigure the plumbing. I hope to have all of that done before the end of February. We will also raise the counter at that end of the kitchen to standard height. It has been a little bit shorter to line up with the dishwasher.
This spring, once the woodshed is filled, my main task will be to replace the shingles on the side of the barn that faces the road. I did the back side last summer, but I am hoping to get started a little earlier this year than I did then. This year’s side of the roof has 11 of the 12 skylights, and a very peculiar valley where two curved roofs meet, so it will be a little more intellectually stimulating.
This winter I have again been delivering firewood from sawmill slabs to a neighbor with health troubles. I usually try to do more of that before winter so the wood has more time to dry and it is easier to get it to the woodshed, but last year I didn’t get caught up on our own firewood till later than usual because I was rebuilding one of the sheds and couldn’t fill it till afterward. One of the people for whom I built a ramp last fall mentioned that he sometimes needed his roof shoveled in the winter, and I went over there once this year to clear off the trailer and outbuildings for him. We haven’t had a really snowy winter overall, so we haven’t had to shovel any roofs here yet.
Catholic Worker Farm Gathering by Joanna
I’m just back from the fifth annual Catholic Worker farm gathering (my third), which was hosted and organized by Anathoth Community Farm, DRAT Farm, St. Isidore Farm, and Lake City Catholic Worker Farm. I’ve enjoyed the company, the food, the music, and the chance to talk and pray with others who are living their way into some of the same questions that shape my life.
In a roundtable on community organizing beyond the CW we discussed the tension between living an alternative to the consumer culture and staying constructively engaged with neighbors to whom such a life may seem foreign. We were organizing for a wide variety of things, ranging from neighborhood projects to broader campaigns for reformed agricultural policy, racial justice, prison abolition etc. We shared our frustrations and perplexities, and also a few approaches that had helped us build relationships, bridge divides and explore new possibilities. These included asking questions which elicited complex stories rather than simple talking points, listening attentively, spending time together without a controversial agenda, staying engaged over the long term, and avoiding buzzwords that trigger other people’s assumptions and raise their defenses (for instance, some participants had found that politically conservative farmers who were irked by talk about sustainability were glad to talk and think about health—personal health, soil health, community health—in a way that addressed the same essential issues.)
Several participants framed the issue in terms of creativity, breaking out of monolithic assumptions (all problems must be dealt with by paid and accredited experts; peace must always be maintained by force; etc) and standard polarized either-or choices (liberal or conservative; generosity or security; jobs or environmental protection). Sometimes this means stepping back from the immediate argument or problem and asking people to think of what they value: What do you most want for this community? What would love look like in this situation? Sometimes it means accepting the role of a holy fool—someone whose position outside accepted norms and structures may seem ridiculous or strange, but may also demonstrate the fact that there are more possible ways of living in this world than we are usually encouraged to believe.
I also took part in roundtable conversations about how we handle mental health issues in community, about the encyclical Laudato Si/On Care For Our Common Home, and about creative approaches to aging on Catholic Worker farms. Other roundtables addressed nuclear policy, social media, farm economics, and the ethics of land ownership. Impromptu conversations touched on family relationships within and beyond the Catholic Worker, the challenges of hosting groups in a way that is meaningful and not exhausting, and the details of growing mushrooms, dealing with animal and insect pests in the garden and greenhouse, and feeding rabbits. During the keynote, four Catholic Workers talked about their recent arrest for turning off an oil pipeline after consulting with indigenous communities immediately affected by pipeline issues & reflecting on the long-term harm done by climate change, and old & new farmers from Anathoth described how they’re learning to appreciate and tend the life of soil microorganisms on their farm while also recapturing carbon dioxide.
There were also delicious meals with many farm-grown ingredients and a sprightly contradance with live music by CWers. And before meals, and between sessions, and in the evenings starting early and continuing after I had toddled off to my couch in the church basement, there was harmony singing, different voices coming together to create something richly layered and beautiful.
In Brief
The annual meeting of St. Francis Farm Community will be held on April 13. We appreciate the time and attention of our off-farm Directors, Margaret Clerkin, Andrew Nelson, and Sarah VanNorstrand.
Lorraine will be dividing perennial herbs and flowers in April and May and is happy to share plants with any who want them.
We’ll celebrate Screen-Free Week during the school’s April vacation, 4/15-4/20. More information is online at www.screenfree.stfrancisfarm.org
Joanna has fixed errors at http://stfrancisfarm.org (if you still see problems, let us know.) She’ll update the homepage quarterly when each newsletter is posted, and more frequent updates will appear on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/stfrancisfarmcommunity/
June 2019
Another spring brings wildflowers and black flies, more work and visitors, nesting birds and hungry woodchucks. The slow time and our annual meeting are behind us. Necessary work-pulling weeds and cutting firewood, planting seeds and mending fences-provides an antidote to news-induced despair. Autocrats swagger, wealth gaps widen, and migrants flee but find no refuge. But light grows, thrushes sing, trees leaf out, tadpoles emerge from jelly eggs. We thank the Creator for life that thrives in spite of heedless greed, and we invite others to come enjoy what can’t be bought nor sold.
During school vacation week in April, Joanna again organized ScreenFree activities at the farm and in the wider community. Five children and eight adults, all new to the farm, came for a sunset nature walk and stayed to observe woodcocks displaying at dusk. They were attentive, walked the trails without tiring or complaining, asked questions and took brochures. Nobody came to help with work on the afternoon scheduled for volunteers to help with garden or trails. (article continues after photos)
Last year during ScreenFree week we held a ‘barn dance’ in Richland at the suggestion of Sarah VanNorstrand who calls contradances and is on our Board of Directors. She is interested in promoting small community dances and noticed the old school building that houses the Halfshire in Richland. They didn’t charge us rent for the use of the space, Sarah volunteered to call, and Eileen Kalfass and Zeke Smukler to play fiddle and guitar, while Zach played banjo. Only about a dozen people came but they enjoyed dancing and live music so we tried again. Don Hughes on keyboard joined Eileen and Zach this year. With better publicity, more than 55 people came, filling the space cleared for dancing. I was pleased to see people of all ages dancing and laughing together without any stimulant other than the music, especially after Joanna had reported after her last community task force meeting that some attenders blamed rising drug use on ‘kids having nothing to do’ in this area. (article continues after pictures)
May 10th, Joanna and I took feathers and skulls, salamanders and a frog, pond water with its tiny critters, wooden toys and farm photos to the library in Pulaski. The new librarian had invited us for the second in a Discover and Learn series. I was wishing I was back at the farm getting some work done because nobody had shown up. Then a father with two young boys returning books and came over to see what we had brought. He told us that they were neighbors who had moved in around the corner on route 22 and often passed the farm. The boys were interested in the live critters and able to identify many of the skulls and feathers. One kept trying until he was able to place all the round blocks without tipping the crocodile and spilling them. I hope if it ever stops raining, they’ll come walk our trails and find salamanders under rocks and maybe take some plants or even help in the gardens. (article continues below pictures)
This spring I’ve shared divisions of perennial herbs and flowers and hope they flourish wherever they’re planted. Zach has pulled the ‘chariot’ he built last year so visitors who couldn’t walk so far could go see the trillium and the pasture pond. I hope people will keep finding this a place of peace, a respite from distractions and consumerism, a point of contact with creation and their Creator. –by Lorraine
Farm Update (written May 13) by Joanna
I used to imagine that learning how to farm was a clear and linear process in which more and more questions were answered by experience and the way to grow food well in a particular place became ever clearer. It hasn’t been quite that simple. The place remains the same, but the climate and the creatures we’re working with keep changing.
This has been another cold spring like last year’s, but while last year turned dry as soon as we were able to start planting, this year has stayed very wet. The pastures are lush and lovely, but often the goats stay inside because of hard rain (or go out and eat the soaking grass and pick up more worms). The eggplant, pepper and tomato seedlings in the greenhouse are growing slowly in the gray weather, though their color is healthy and they’re compact and sturdy. I’ve already set out chard, kale and onions, all of which are staying healthy without watering but growing rather slowly. I didn’t get peas in until mid-April, and they took their time growing after that—they’re still only about three inches high, though they’re thick and dark green. Potatoes went in at the beginning of May; their shoots still haven’t emerged, but that may be just as well since the temperatures are still quite low. Lettuce and spinach are also progressing slowly, though we’re still getting salad greens from plants in pots started in the greenhouse. We just had our first asparagus to eat on Mother’s Day, and the rhubarb began a little before that. Our shiitake logs, which thrive in the damp weather, have been producing mushrooms since mid-April. The lateness of our spring harvests is made easier by the abundance of last year’s storage crops. We had potatoes, carrots and parsnips from the wellhouse/root cellar and garlic and onions from cool dry storage to use and give away into May.
On April 28 our new goat Nan gave birth to twin kids, a buckling and a doeling. The buckling never figured out how to suckle; our attempts to help him, and then to warm him up, failed, and he died at just over a day old. But the doeling, Honey, is thriving, learning to hop and to graze. Nan doesn’t milk well through the winter, so we plan to sell her, along with Honey, to the Amish neighbor whose buck fathered Honey. We’re hoping to get another doe from the same farm that sold us our doe Amada, who is still producing plenty of milk after kidding in spring 2018.
Last fall our rabbit breedings didn’t produce any kits, and I was afraid I might have overfed the does to the point where they couldn’t conceive. I watched their weights through the winter and we bred them again this spring. The first two breedings produced nothing, and we thought we might need to stop raising rabbits, or to get rid of our stock and start over. Then on April 15 our young doe Kittery gave birth to seven kits. The week after that one of her sisters had six kits, and then their mother, our oldest doe, whose first breeding this spring had failed, had six. We’re guessing that our buck went heat-sterile last August when the nights stayed warm, but now he’s viable again. By the time Kittery’s young were ready to start eating solid food we had enough grass and legumes to cut for them.
We’re also enjoying the harvests that come by grace, without our work and worrying. The cool gray weather has slowed the development of the fiddleheads and wild leek greens and allowed us to enjoy eating them over an unusually long season. And just last week when I walked in the woods with a friend we spotted many shiitake mushrooms growing from stumps that we’d inoculated nine years ago and given up on perhaps five years ago. We should keep getting harvests for some years now, if we pay attention and notice when they’re ready.
I’m still trying to learn how to grow things well in our changing seasons, and also how to cultivate patience, attention and gratitude. That process is not linear either, but it can be satisfying.
Zach’s Work
Our maple sugar season this year was short, but we still got enough. The first run of the year in late February ended with a cold snap and very high winds so the sap got frozen into the buckets for a couple of weeks. A few lids and buckets blew away but all were eventually found as the snow melted. Overall we made about 9 gallons of syrup from 39 taps. I was talking to one of our Amish neighbors this spring about how to get the taps clean inside and he suggested boiling them, which I will try.
Due to the long cold winter we burned all of the wood in the main shed and in the extra stack in the new building, and by now we have burned most of what had been meant for summer wood. I was able to go to the woods during several days in March, with a sled to carry the chain saw and such, while the snow was frozen hard on top. This let me cut most of the firewood I was planning to bring in this spring, except what was under the snow. Once the snow melted and we got some dry weather I went out with the tractor and only had to do a little bit of cutting and to load the wood. This saved a lot of time and I got the main shed and the extra area filled in April. There is some wood that I cut that I have not been able to collect since the ground is still too wet. I will use it to fill the auxiliary shed where we keep summer wood, which will be empty soon. We are lucky to have a good supply of wood available, especially when the weather and thus the amount of wood needed is so variable from year to year.
The boiler damper motor died in April and we ordered a new one. During the 4 or 5 days before delivery I had to manually open or close the damper on the back of the boiler each time it turned on or off. This was a bit inconvenient but at least we were still able to use the boiler, and it would have been much worse if it had happened during the winter.
In late April I ordered the materials for the front side of the roof of the barn in which we live. I had hoped to start on this job at the beginning of May, but we are two weeks in and it has been raining almost every day. Last year I did the back side and it took about 6 weeks with some interruptions for weather and other work, and I expect the front to take slightly longer, once I get started. The kitchen alterations I wrote about in the last newsletter got done, and came out pretty well. It’s nice to have the dishwasher out of there, and to have more functional cabinets and drawers.
Last summer while mowing the fields I broke the knife in the haybine. The machine is about 50 years old, so breakdowns are to be expected. We just bought a new knife which will be an improvement over the old one since it has sickle sections that are bolted on instead of riveted. This will make it much easier to replace broken sections, but it meant a bit more work to make the conversion. I am hoping that mowing will be more trouble-free this year.
The chickens didn’t go out from their winter coop till April this year because of the continuing bad weather, and at first they were getting out from their movable yard. At my mother’s suggestion I added some heavy wire mesh to the bottom of the yard which prevents them from scratching up the dirt and digging holes, and now they are staying in better. They have been laying very well this spring, since they are just a year or so old. At the time of this writing we have just gotten our piglet for the year and it seems very robust and healthy. We are having three days of rainy weather with highs in the 40s, but the pig seems to be doing okay so far and once it warms up I am sure it will be happier. Last week I went to town in the car one day and that evening I noticed oil drips on the road leading into our driveway. There was no oil trail going out, so the car must have sprung the leak while I was in town. I found that the external filter for the transmission oil had rusted through, so the next day I rode my bicycle into town in a downpour and got a new filter and some more oil. With my poncho I was able to stay relatively dry and luckily the repair was easy. The people who were bringing our piglet to the rendezvous in Barnes Corners were kind enough to postpone the trip by a day, since I found the leak the night before I was supposed to meet them in the morning. It was one of those incidents that is a bit inconvenient but could easily have been much worse if the oil leak had begun when we were on our way to get the piglet.
In Brief
We’ve had so much rain that the brooks are still full in the middle of May. Blooms have held longer in the cool weather. The black flies are out and the mosquitos will be as soon as it warms up, but they should be kept in check by the bats we see flying at dusk, the swallows that have finally returned, and the frogs that are loud in this wet spring. I enjoy early morning birdsong with the migrants back setting up territory, but have missed the calls of the barred owls this spring.
Two college students are scheduled to volunteer, one in July and one in August. Local volunteers and gleaners who would pick what we can’t use and take it for themselves or to share would be welcome.
September 2019
People tend to worry about how we’re making it through winters at the farm, but it is the summers I find most challenging. The growing season brings so many blessings from the first asparagus (or later peas, new potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, berries etc.) to the riot of color in my gardens, and the influx of visitors. These blessings require planning, weeding, harvesting, sorting, preserving, cleaning and cooking that challenge me more each summer. And then I don’t want to miss the sunrise and the dew of early morning nor the sunset and fireflies. I keep stealing time to watch the does with their fawns or the nests with young about to fledge. So this August when I’m freezing peppers and pesto, drying and canning tomatoes, when the ragweed is in bloom and allergies slow me down, I’m grateful to the visitors who wrote for this newsletter, giving readers fresh perspectives on our life. We missed having gleaners this summer, couldn’t find anyone willing and able to come and pick and take excess garden produce, but we enjoyed reconnecting with old friends and showing the farm to people who had just found it.
In July Brother Tom McNamara came as he has every year but one since our arrival in 2001. He told us about his work at Our Lady of Sorrows in Manhattan and listened thoughtfully to our hopes and concerns. He played mandolin to accompany Zach’s banjo and Jo’s and Richard’s guitars for an evening of singing. He helped me snap beans for canning, helped Jo pull and clean garlic, and helped Zach at the sawmill—a first for him. He took oak slabs to make benches in his Manhattan garden and garlic to plant there this fall. I gave him lavender sachets I make and used to send with Hope to give to refugee mothers. He told me about a troubled woman he had prayed with and given dried balsam and lavender that we sent with him last year. He said she told him that smelling it reminded her of the prayers and gave her hope.
A few days later Sr. Louise came for lunch and spent the afternoon with us. She can only come now when she has someone to drive her, but we keep in touch by phone and count each visit as a blessing. Although she has lost much of her sight, her spirit and inner vision remain strong, and she still enjoys our farm food while we enjoy her stories.
This summer has also brought new people. A woman came to meet her son here for a supervised visit. The supervisor thought her office had called about coming, but we weren’t expecting them. The boy enjoyed walking our trails, seeing wildlife, and looking things up in our nature guides. The family and the supervisor took vegetables and called before their next visit. That day I had time to talk with the grandparents who brought the boy and found that they remembered us from ten years ago when their son came to do community service. The grandmother took garlic and dill for her pickle-making and I promised to make cheese with the boy next month. One Saturday when my work for the week was about done, I heard some people walking by and asking each other about the barn and what St. Francis Farm was. They were camping at a neighbor’s for a family reunion. I ended up giving them a tour and brochures, answering their questions, explaining to one how to plant and when to harvest garlic.
As the summer rushes along with all its wonders and work, knowing that we are all in God’s loving hands helps me keep my balance, and in spite of my hurrying or worrying people still find this a place of peace.
Richard’s story
I really do feel that it was the gentle voice of God that guided me to St. Francis Farm.
When I arrived, I found space. Space to breathe in the open air. Space to exist in one place with nowhere else to be. Space to work with and get to know others who speak honestly, directly, and from the heart — with no agendas or fake pretensions. There was none of the unspoken pressure to “be” a certain way to “fit in” that is often found in tight-knit groups.
Going to St. Francis Farm is not a vacation. It’s hard work, not a relaxing time or a nice retreat. It’s remote. If you go there, you will pull weeds for hours, get tangled up in prickers while you pick berries, try to ignore the biting flies while you milk goats, and — if you have the unfortunate tendency to mess up or forget things as much as I do — get reprimanded and scolded some too (always with loving honesty).
I went to bed tired, and woke up feeling awake. My usual three cups of coffee a day was reduced to one in the morning — and my body felt no need to complain.
In the mornings everyone goes to the upstairs chapel and prays in silence. We just sit there. No goal, or purpose. Just sitting, listening. Most of the time I sat there completely distracted, my mind turning over this or that. My distracted morning prayers became my favorite time of the day.
We ate every meal together. We had break times scheduled into the day to spend time with others or go off by ourselves. In the evenings, sometimes all of us would go for a walk around the trails through the fields and the woods. Sometimes I would retreat to my room or pull one of the many books from the shelves in the chapel.
I spent hours sitting on the steps to my room and playing a mandolin that was handmade by Zachary. I couldn’t remember a time since I was a teenager first learning guitar that I had felt such a simple joy playing an instrument — playing it badly at that!
Surrounded by spaciousness, there was nothing left for my anxious mind to latch onto. My biggest challenge on the farm turned out not to be milking goats (although that WAS a challenge), but grappling with the negative sides of my own mind laid bare for me to confront. Feelings of anxiety, insecurity, and worry feed off of the distractions and competitiveness of consumer society. Often I’m able to suppress these feelings with busy-ness, or project them onto other people, things or circumstances. Doing that proved impossible on the farm, and I had to face what I felt. Thank God I was around understanding people during those moments, who listened with patience, heart, and clarity!
Playing that mandolin, pulling weeds, getting pricked in the berry bushes, I was able to look at these anxieties and tensions I carried and see them as exactly what they are: illusions, lies, and mental habits run amok, pulling me away from my true identity as a child of God.
How many people in our world are walking around in a state of tension, inner conflict, anxiety, dissatisfaction, and fear? How many people have so deeply internalized these illusions as being an essential part of their selves? How many people self-medicate with drugs, alcohol, television, or workaholism? How many people honestly think: “I am an anxious person,” or “I am a nervous person,” and truly believe that this is who they are?
I had spent my first years out of college living a mostly unspiritual life, focused on myself, on politics, on studying, on activism, on travel, and doing “interesting things.” A lot of people told me I was doing things right. But at the end of the day when nothing was left to distract me, I sat in my room by myself, and I felt empty and anxious. I had forgotten God.
How had I forgotten that I’m really a child of God? That every single person I meet is too? How could I have forgotten that this inner child — no matter how much I bury it and forget it underneath the layers of ego — is the source of everything good, all life itself? One day I’ll look back on this period of my life as the time that I remembered God and began to pay attention to the gentle voice that spoke me into existence. That voice still calls me from within to be who I was created to be.
St. Francis Farm for me, was the place that I needed to be to listen to that voice more clearly, and it was clearly that voice — soft and true — that led me there. Thank you, Lorraine, Joanna, Zachary, and Fr. Tom, and God bless St. Francis Farm!
Giovanni’s story
I first heard of St. Francis Farm from a former volunteer on a forum dedicated to progressive Christian thought, and was immediately intrigued by the life of prayer, quiet, and of course agricultural work that took place on the farm. For a week in July, I finally got the chance to visit St. Francis Farm and reflect on its message for my life and our times.
For someone starting graduate school this fall who grew up largely in the suburbs, St. Francis Farm embodied a radically different way of living and working. I had experience doing manual labor and even a little farm work, but the pace and quantity of the work here was challenging to me. Yet this challenge was not without its rewards: not only did I learn all sorts of practical skills, from milking goats to gardening to making cheese, but I found my work mentally rewarding and had little difficulty focusing on it or pushing through a given task. Lorraine, Joanna and Zach were incredibly helpful in showing me the ropes and were always patient with my mistakes as I learned.
For me, the change of pace that agricultural life represented was only a small part of a much larger challenge posed by St. Francis Farm: a challenge to think critically about what we consume, the consequences of our actions, and what really matters in life. As I negotiated the differences between life on St. Francis Farm and my life at home, I frequently found myself asking “do I really need that?” The Hoyt family provides a powerful example of a life built around conscientious consumption, economic charity and self-reliance, and attention to spiritual and communal needs over individual and material wants.
I do not see the challenge of St. Francis Farm negatively at all. My time here was a sign of the profound joy and peace a conscientious lifestyle can bring. I loved having blocks of time set aside for prayer and a clear balance between my work on the farm and my pursuit of other interests during my off time. While eating food that was largely grown locally was a new experience, the meals tasted delicious and it felt incredibly rewarding to contribute to all stages of the production of what I was eating. Even drinking a glass of cool spring water after a few hours’ work filled me with gratitude and reminded me of the value of my work. Perhaps most meaningfully to me, St. Francis Farm combined its productivity with community and hospitality. Not only were the Hoyts incredibly welcoming to me and brilliant conversation partners, but stories about past volunteers and my brief meetings with locals attested to an ongoing and expanding community and let me feel connected to past (and future) volunteers at the farm and those who benefited from it. This feeling was very humbling, to be sure, but also a chance to recognize the value of my contributions to a broader community.
I do not yet know if my life will lead me to embrace an agricultural lifestyle like the one I experienced during my time at St. Francis Farm, but I can say I hope to take the lessons I’ve learned with me no matter where I go. In this regard, I hope to answer the challenge that St. Francis Farm represents to our materialistic culture by letting the example of community, friendship, hard work and all of its rewards affect my relationships with others and my thinking about issues even if I live in the city – or the suburbs. Thank you.
Zach’s Work
This year’s big project for me was tearing off the old shingles and roll roofing and putting up new shingles on the front side of the barn we live in. I did the back side last year, but the front was a little different because it has eleven skylights instead of one, and the pantry roof is also connected to it. I started work in late May and finished in late June, working on the roof whenever I had enough dry days between rains.
I cut hay in late June this year, and I cut more than we needed because I failed to account for how thick the hay was this year following the very wet spring we had. We ended up with 320 bales instead of the 150 we needed. We used 20 that were damp for mulch in the garden, and we sold the extra 150. It took about a month to sell them, but finally we found a buyer who actually did what he had said he would do. I cut the rest of the fields in July, and the new haybine knife was a great improvement over the old one. As I was mowing the last field one of the wheel spindles on the haybine broke off and the wheel fell off, but I was able to get a used spindle from a salvage yard and with some new bearings and a new seal it was back to work in a week or so.
In late July I built an access ramp at a home in Altmar, and in early August I built another in Sandy Creek. I was able to build each ramp in one day, which saved extra trips and avoided having to move the tools more times. As in the last several years I am again working under the auspices of ARISE which determines where to send me and purchases the materials. I make the plan, get the building permit and, once the materials are delivered, I build the ramp. I am planning to build two more in September and October.
Lumber sales at the sawmill have been slow over the summer after a fairly busy winter and spring, but it is common for the timing of business there to be irregular and unpredictable. I wasn’t able to get to the woods to bring out logs from January, when the snow became too deep, until late June, because the wet weather kept the ground soft. Normally I have been able to move logs any time after late April, or even earlier in some years. A few people brought in their logs to be sawed. They seemed happy to have a place where they could get just a couple of logs done at a time. This summer Richard and Alicia, two of the volunteers who stayed with us, and Fr. Tom McNamara all ran the sawmill during their visits and seemed to find it interesting.
Joanna’s work (written mid-August)
The growing season is in full swing. I’m frustrated by failures, pleased with good harvests, tired from the work, and grateful for meaningful work and for helpers and learners.
Spring and early summer were wet, but the weather turned drier July into August. Running drip irrigation round the clock and watering morning and evening allowed the crops to grow well. We had our best strawberries ever, froze many and had all we wanted to eat fresh. The peas bore abundantly. We froze all we wanted, sent the soup kitchen and the Community Cupboard all they could take, and finally cut the vines to feed to the goats. We’ve finished canning green beans and are still eating and sharing them. We’ve had good lettuce, kale and chard. The eggplants that got off to a slow start in the early cool weather are starting to bear. Peppers and basil are coming in as fast as we can process them. We’re eating and sharing cherry tomatoes, drying Juliet tomatoes and canning large tomatoes. We’ve had minor fungal problems that thrive in the humid weather, but so far the harvest is good. Some of our garlic was affected by mold, but most heads were large, healthy and good for storage. Cukes and squash were slowed down by squash bugs (which the chickens eat after we pick them off) and vine borers. We’re enjoying new potatoes and onions, and expect to have plenty of both for winter storage.
We’re still trying to figure out what to grow more of and how best to share it. At Task Force meetings people talk about the growing need for food, and particularly for fresh food. But the local places that distribute food can’t always find takers for produce in a timely manner. This may be partly because some people don’t know how to cook with fresh vegetables, partly because of program limits that restrict how often people can get food from certain centers. This winter when there’s more time we’ll think about how to make this connection work better.
Last year the drought meant we didn’t get many wild berries. This year we’ve had a good raspberry harvest and the blackberries are off to a good start. The apples didn’t bloom much, so we expect a smaller harvest there.
Our goat Nan developed severe health problems soon after kidding and had to be put down. We bought a new doe, Robin, from the same farm where we got Amada, who is still with us and producing very well. Robin is settling in and milking well, though she and Amada continue to fight over who gets out to the milk stand first. Nan’s kid continued healthy and we sold her to an Amish neighbor. The rabbits have been prolific; we’ve had six litters from our three does, and Kittery is now pregnant with the year’s last litter. Rabbit forage has grown abundantly in this rainy year.
I’ve had good help and good company as I deal with the ups and downs of farming. Emily, a friend from the Syracuse contradance community, spent the Fourth of July helping us out with gardening as well as bundling willow for winter rabbit feed. Giovanni spent a week with us in early July, Richard came for nearly two weeks in late July, and Alicia was here for just over a week in August. I’m thankful for their help in keeping us caught up with watering and weeding and picking. Richard and Alicia asked quite a few questions about the how and why of gardening, as they hope to keep growing some of their own food. Working together gave us all time to talk about questions of faith, work and calling. I wish them well as they find their way, and I appreciate their presence and their help in this life to which I was called.
It’s been a lovely time for birds. Below: 1-week-old chipping sparrows in their nest in the rose bush, one of those sparrows newly fledged, and barn swallows in Zach’s barn.
December 2019
Words come hard to me now, much meaning lost in this time of deep divisions. What can I say that is true and kind and not easily misconstrued? November brings longer nights and deepening cold. Around the world natural disasters and political rancor displace more and more people to whom no refuge is open. Fewer and fewer gain vast wealth and privilege while many struggle to made ends meet and to make sense of systems beyond their control. But it is time to write for our December newsletter, time to count our blessings, and then to light the Advent candles. I turn again to the Quaker image of “an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness,” and the Catholic Worker concept of personalism, “a way to simply live the Gospels,” and try to find words for what I’ve found true.
Several things bring me back to awareness of the ocean of light—praying together, noticing creation’s splendor, listening to visitors. From 7 to 7:30 each morning is set aside for centering prayer or silent meditation or Quaker worship when we bring our concerns into the silence and hold those we love in light. I try to get outside for the sunrise and often spend the prayer time there until cold is too hard. Just before the time change in fall, I may see the last stars or the waning crescent moon before the light comes up. Often we walk together around sunset—or in starlight or moonlight, or whenever the rain stops or the wind dies down. We savor the changing colors and cloud shapes and stop to listen to the brook or the owls. Visitors delight in these same simple things that we enjoy, and sharing them increases our appreciation as we see familiar things from a fresh perspective.
We see so many big problems we cannot solve, and sometimes the small things we can do for one person at a time seem insignificant. Desmond Tutu reminds us, “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”An elder needs help getting to medical appointments and sorting out communication with different providers. Non-custodial parents are looking for things to do when they have time with their children. People who don’t have land and can’t afford to travel want places they can hunt. Some visitors want to learn skills while others may just want someone to listen. A fisherman comes in at dusk to thank us for letting him fish—he’s very pleased because everyone in his party, even the young boy, has caught and released some fish. Jan, originally from Poland but more recently New Jersey, comes to walk or fish. The farm reminds him of home so he sends pictures to his family and brings his daughter and granddaughter to see for themselves. We persuade him to take garlic, onions, and cider, and he brings us homemade kielbasa. The gleaner we missed this summer comes and asks to hunt this fall. He takes produce and says he’ll be back to glean next year. He just thought he should be giving someone else a chance.
We’re all so interdependent. I am more aware of my own limitations as my knees creak and my back tires sooner and the world changes too fast for me. Joanna took time from her own gardens to dig out sections of mine that were overgrown so I could replant what could be salvaged. Zach helps me use a cell phone and the debit card devices at various stores. They take me to any appointments since I’ve never had good enough vision to get a license. My best friend from high school is a nurse focused on holistic health. Her sound advice, invigorating optimism and staunch support have been a blessing since I reconnected with her last year. Hope brings us meals in summer when we’re feeling most stretched. Bonnie and Mary Anne give us books. Just to know that people are praying for us when we’re discouraged is a gift. When anyone speaks to me of how much we give, I am mindful of all we receive.
Words can’t convey the solace of the fragrance of lavender and balsam fir, the beauty of bare branches against a deep blue winter sky, the comfort of the cello vibrating at the end of a favorite hymn. May all who read this find a way into the silence where they can hear the angels’ message—“Be not afraid.” —Lorraine
Father and daughter crossing the stepping stones on one of our nature trails
Zach’s Work
We have had a long cooler fall this year and an early arrival of winter weather, but I was able to do most of the fall jobs before the snow began. In early September I built a wheelchair ramp in Orwell, bringing this year’s total to three. I hope to get an earlier start on ramps next year since I won’t have the big roof projects of the past two seasons to do. When I first completed the shingling of the front side of the barn there were no leaks around the skylights, but later in the summer and early in the fall I had several leaks develop above the upper skylights. The new roofing is architectural shingles instead of 3 tab, and I had trouble getting them to conform tightly to the shape of the roof at the top of the 3rd floor skylights, and I think that water was puddling above the skylights in heavy rains. I had to make a few attempts before the new leaks were stopped, but they seemed to be gone during the last rains this fall before the snow began.
We sold a lot of lumber in September and got the loft almost empty, and I have had enough good weather to bring in more logs and saw them so that now the loft is pretty well stocked for the winter. I have also been doing some small jobs sawing other people’s logs that they bring to the mill. Early in the fall I cut some small dead trees for firewood to fill up the woodpiles for the farmhouse and the sugar house, and later in October I emptied out the summer firewood shed and got it refilled so that next summer’s wood will have time to dry. The ash trees on the farm are starting to die more rapidly, we presume as a result of the Emerald Ash Borer which has been spreading throughout the country in recent years. I have been making sure I always keep ash in stock at the sawmill building and am hoping to be able to keep up with processing the trees that die before they rot.
Our pig was very successful this year, he reached a large size in a timely way. He was built differently than any other pig we’ve had, but it didn’t seem to do him any harm. This summer my pumpkins did not do well at all, only two pumpkins formed and they both rotted before they ripened. I had trouble with vine borers so the plants died early. The gourds I had in the same place did exceptionally well, though of course they’re only good for decoration unless one has the food safety powers of the prophet Elisha. The shiitake mushrooms logs were not as productive this year as last year, partly perhaps because of the cooler weather and partly because they are getting older. We will probably start a batch of new logs next late winter/early spring which will start producing mushrooms in 2021.
I’ve been having some trouble with the boiler damper system again, after replacing the actuator in April. It is supposed to automatically close the air intake when the fan turns off, but a couple of weeks ago I found that the shaft from the actuator to the damper had rusted away and snapped off inside. After talking to the boiler company I think I will be able to fix it myself, but I will need to find a time when we can shut the boiler down for a while so I may wait till spring. When the shaft broke the damper was open and the actuator still audibly runs in the normal way. I didn’t notice that anything had happened till a routine check of the damper as much as a week or two later, so it seems that we can get by without it for the time being. I am not very impressed with the way this system was designed, but no doubt it was done this way for a reason.
Late in October I rented a pole chain saw for a day and used it to trim branches around the edges of all of the fields and along some woods roads. Since then I have been picking up the branches and putting them in the woods, doing some ground level cutting around the fields, and pulling out honeysuckle bushes. I will continue when there isn’t too much snow and plan to get all of the cleanup done before the grass starts to grow next spring.
This fall I replaced one of the windows in the workshop which had cracked a pane last winter. This is the third of the windows that were originally installed when the barn was converted in the 1990s which has failed in the same way, always on a very cold day in the winter. It must be some temperature differential between inside and outside, but since the windows never fail completely we just wait till it’s warmer outside and replace the whole window then. I also replaced the plywood siding on the large dormer on the back of the farmhouse which was rotting in some places.
We had a windstorm in early November that left us without power for 18 hours or so, and the generator that we bought last year ran the whole time with no problems. In the summer we only run the generator from time to time to keep the freezers cold and run the well, but in the colder months we usually have to run it full time to keep the boiler going.
Agriculture update (written November 12) by Joanna
I’ve spent the last month hurrying to get the last harvests in and the garden cleaned up before winter. Last Thursday I cut off the asparagus ferns and mulched that bed as the first snow fell. It’s snowing again, and we’re done harvesting anything but Brussels sprouts and kale from the outdoor garden. But the pantry and the root cellar are well stocked despite some pest and weather challenges, and the “winter garden” in the greenhouse is flourishing. I’m grateful for the growing season’s abundance and I’m looking forward to the winter’s rest.
Our tomato plants dropped their blossoms in the high humidity of late August, and I worried about whether we’d have enough, but we canned 83 quarts and still had tomatoes to share. We had fresh eggplant every week, though not the surplus that filled our freezers last year. The peppers bore copiously; we ate them, froze them, and gave them away by the bushel. This was our best year ever for broccoli, though the Brussels sprouts didn’t thrive. While we had plenty of large onions, onion maggots bored into some (especially the sweet ones) and spoiled them for storage though not for immediate use. We had plenty to share fresh and still have enough to keep us through the winter. The other root/tuber crops throve: we have 330 pounds of potatoes and eleven five-gallon buckets of carrots packed in the root cellar, and we had heavy boxes of both to give away. This year the apples didn’t bloom as heavily as in 2018. We were vigilant about harvesting all we could, and ended up with all we wanted frozen, canned as applesauce, and made into cider.
Last year our rabbit buck went heat-sterile in the summer and we didn’t get fall litters. This year our does have produced litters reliably, though some litters have been small. Our new goat, Robin, has settled in and is gaining some much-needed weight. The chickens stayed outside with access to their compost pile and their moving pasture until the snow started, and now they’re in their sunny winter coop, still laying well; we have all the eggs we can eat, and then some.
In August I wrote that we were having some trouble finding takers for extra produce. I said then that we’d figure it out in the winter, but we didn’t have to wait that long. We checked with the manager of Springbrook, the local subsidized apartment complex for seniors, and were assured that their residents would be glad to eat as many vegetables as we could bring. I felt apologetic about bringing thin-skinned onions, nicked potatoes or cursorily cleaned carrots, but the residents made it clear that they knew actual fresh food from a garden tended to be dirty and sometimes imperfect and they figured on enjoying it anyway. I hope that the connection begun by these produce runs will grow and flourish through this winter and into the next growing season.
Springbrook Connection
November 18 we went to Springbrook to tell residents about the farm, invite them to visit, and see what else we might do there now that the garden is done for the year. We took photos, brochures and crafts to show them. They remembered some of the wooden toys from their childhood and some wanted to buy them for their grandchildren. It’s always hard to explain the farm economy—that what we offer isn’t for sale and that donations are accepted but not expected. We’ll go back December 10 with materials for a few toys we can help residents make and with some completed toys left over from past years.
A few residents spoke of coming to visit the farm. Others told us how much they’ve enjoyed the vegetables from the farm. We’re glad to connect with some Springbrook residents again after a gap of a few years, and we look forward to getting to building on this beginning and to making toys again.
Readings
Winter is also our best reading time, and we’d be glad to hear what books you recommend. Here are three titles that have moved us, encouraged us or made us think in recent months:
Christy Lefteri’s The Beekeeper Of Aleppo tells the story of a Syrian refugee couple who have escaped their country without their son and are trying simultaneously to find a safe refuge and to find some way of living with all they have lost. I (Joanna) found it particularly vital in this time when so many are displaced and trying to heal.
Barbara Brown Taylor’s Holy Envy describes her experience as an Episcopal priest teaching comparative religion to college students, many of whom came from very conservative Christian backgrounds. In this time of so much rancorous dispute over religion I was refreshed by her generosity of spirit toward her students and toward the congregations from other faiths which welcomed them, and also by her deep commitment to, and deep questioning of, her own faith.
Barry Lopez’s Horizon is about as hard to describe as it is satisfying to read. It’s a loving, thoughtful, often sorrowful look at the history and ecology of particular places around the world where the author has lived/worked/studied, and at what it might mean to live appropriately as limited human creatures in a marvelous, dangerous, and endangered world which we did not create.
Lorraine took down quotes as she read, some of which we’ve been posting on our Facebook page along with pictures.
From Horizon:
“Lives without restraint are eventually ruinous, to those individuals and to the social and physical world around them.”
“Without room for mystery and uncertainty…there cannot be any truly intelligent conversation.”
“We are the darkness as we are, too, the light.”
From Holy Envy:
“Our shadows are often behind us, where others can see them better than we can.”
“While we spin our wheels trying to control things beyond our control, we ignore the one thing that is within our power to change: our way of seeing things.”
“The neighbors God has given me to love do not all call God by the same name.”
A gallery of fall visitors
top: Marge helping clean onions and riding in her chariot.
second row: Emily visits again & helps press cider. Kathy Crandall finally came for lunch and a tour—hope she’ll come again.
third row:Charles came several times this fall & helped with/learned about elderberries, cider, sawmill, and garlic. He’s also a helpful resource about alternative energy. Here he’s planting garlic and running the mill.
fourth row: Charles processing elderberries. Pat, who stopped by for a tour and enjoyed picking chard and dill to take home.
Thanks
Thanks to all who supported our work with prayers, presence and donations, and to all who came and worked with us. Please contact us if you would like to change the way you receive our newsletter or if you need a receipt for donations made in 2019. Winter visitors are welcome to come walk, ski, talk and worship with us. During the growing season the farm may be more obviously lovely, and there’s more manual work to help with; during the winter we have more time to plan and to ponder. We’ll be planning our garden and will be glad to talk with other folks about gardening. In early January we’ll hold our annual review and discernment session, and we’d be glad to hear your questions and feedback as we prepare for that.
ST. FRANCIS FARM
136 Wart Road
Lacona, NY 13083
stfrancisfarm@yahoo.com
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